Experimenting with the flower
by Detouredbe
Summary: In this one-shot, Mother Gothel tests all the things she can do without consequence, thanks to her newfound magical flower. My first Tangled fic; reviews are appreciated.


**In my first Tangled fanfic, Mother Gothel tries experimenting with all the things she can do, now that she's found that magic flower.**

Realizing she was not dreaming, that she had indeed found a magic healing flower, and was young and in optimal shape for the first time in decades, Gothel was ecstatic. She felt a little celebration was in due, of course, and spent the next half hour or so singing and dancing like a graceful dryad up on the rocks beside the cliff. It didn't seem to matter that she might fall and hurt herself - or did it? Was she absolutely certain the flower could take care of an injury? So thinking, she deliberately lost her balance and tumbled down the rocks, obtaining a severe bump on the noggin and several cuts and scrapes in the process. Ignoring the pain, she scrambled back over to the flower and sang the healing incantation again. As soon as she was done, it was as if she had never fallen.

Laughter of pure relief and delight bubbled up in her as she knelt beside her flower, on that cliff. For a long time after that she did nothing but lie down beside it, adoring its beauty and magic.

Near dawn, she awoke feeling a natural sensation. She had eaten nothing since the night before, and felt the internal complaints for it now. Looking back at the flower, she wondered - what else can it do? Perhaps she could eat enough to fill three grown men, and with the flower's help she would not gain a pound from it? Gothel had always had a healthy appetite, so that would be good.

She returned home and spent the rest of the day cooking, preparing, and consuming every ounce of food she had. She found by the end of it that she was too full to eat another bite, so she decided she would continue her experiment in the evening.

Behind the forest where Gothel lived, alone in a tower in a beautiful clearing by a waterfall, was a village which she knew was holding a festival that night. Dawning a clean blue dress* which complimented her eye colour, she checked herself in the mirror, still marvelling at the fact that her formerly gray tendrils were glossy black again, and her skin was radiant, smooth and elastic once more, then grabbed her red cloak and made off.

Almost as if celebrating returning to that village for the first time in many years, Gothel was quite the life of the party. No one recognized the beautiful dark haired woman in the red cloak and blue dress, which added an aura of excitement and mystery to her, from the young men's perspective. All of them wanted to dance with her, even those who already had dates, and while Gothel accepted most invitations, of course her main focus was on the food. There were a number of tables full of it, artisan loaves of various sorts, fine cheeses, platters of vegetables, fruits and nuts, and especially cakes, pies, cookies and jellos. It was the dessert tables Gothel most frequented - they were the most rich and decadent of foods, and therefore the most likely to cause weight gain, right? Besides, she had such a relentless sweet tooth anyway.

By the time Gothel returned home, in the early a.m. hours, she estimated she must have eaten the equivalent of two platters of cookies (which had been stacked in tall triangles, of course), half a cake and two thirds of a pie, an entire jello, six or seven hunks of bread with any amount of cheese topped on them, and who knows how much fruit and veggies. To top that all off, she had drunk enough wine to get six men drunk, it seemed.

She woke up the next afternoon feeling very sick, as could have been expected. Choosing to ignore the pounding headache, she rose out of her bed, and checked herself in the mirror. Unfortunately her nightgown was very billowy, so if she was fatter today it didn't really show. She proceeded to pull her nightgown off, and checked again. She discovered not only that she had not worn any underwear when she crawled into bed the night before, but that, whether from fat storage or simply the fact it was still too full, her stomach was bulging out a good deal more than it had last night.

Waiting until night, when she was certain everything that wasn't stored in her body was gone, Gothel lit a candle and went back to her mirror. Yep. Her stomach did still bulge out further than was required. Patting it, she smiled. Now it was time to test what that flower could do. Seeing the silver streaks returning to her mane, she figured a visit to the flower was in due that night, anyway.

Back on the cliff beside the magic plant, she sang the incantation again. She grinned when, at the end, she felt the slight tightness of her dress loosen. Perfect! To heck with the concept that gluttony was a deadly sin! This was a truly amazing little creation, this flower. Granted that she stayed within range of it, Gothel figured she could feast heavily, drink heavily, overdo an activity, or do pretty much anything she wanted, and the flower would undo all the damage for her, all the while keeping her young and beautiful. Hey, maybe it could even bathe her! She ran through the forest to a swamp she knew the location of, stripped herself, and rolled around like a hippo in the mud. Running through the forest holding her clothes - heck, she could afford these sorts of tricks when she had this flower on her side! - she returned to the cliff and sang to it again. She frowned when she was still muddy, then sighed. So it couldn't do _everything_, too bad. "_Oh well,_" she thought as she went off to bathe in the river at home, "_it hardly matters when the flower can do so much else!_" Then she stopped. Up until now, she had not realized it, but shouldn't she cover up that thing? As far as she knew, she was the only one who lived out in the forest, but that still didn't mean people didn't go there. What if someone else would happen along the flower, and somehow recognize its healing properties? They might take it for themselves, or sell it, and it would be gone. No more feasting and frolicking. No more youth and beauty. Gothel would have to find a way to hide the fact it was there. She must make a cover - something that looked like it naturally occurred there - maybe something that looked like a small bush. She was about to head back instinctively to do so, when she remembered her nude, muddy state. She looked down her shapely body and sighed. The bath would have to come first, she guessed as she reached the river and dove in.

**The end.**

**AN: Well, I've been wanting to do something with Mother Gothel for a long time, because she's my favourite Tangled character, and now I've done it. What a lot of fun!**

*** I put an asterisk there, for those who may have forgotten or not noticed that in that scene in the prologue when elderly Gothel finds the flower, she was wearing a bluish dress and a red cloak, instead of her more familiar red dress and greenish-black cloak.**


End file.
